Why doesn't the search function work properly?

Energize · 9 Feb 2011 at 19:34

If I type "C#", there's no matches, if I type "C++" then it's "The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search : "C, "". The whole point of quotation marks is that the entire term is searched for, why on earth is it parsing it one letter at time? :mad:

apeZ · 9 Feb 2011 at 19:37

Try without quotation marks?

Pho · 9 Feb 2011 at 19:38

Google to the rescue!

It's very annoying though. I always get hit by the "very common, too long, or too short" thing

.

semi-pro waster · 9 Feb 2011 at 19:39

apeZ said:
Try without quotation marks?

Can't, there's a minimum of 3 letters for the search to work, otherwise it is judged as too short. I'm unsure about the C++ in quotation marks but it seems to only work on matching a string of consecutive letters so whether it doesn't include symbols in that I'm not certain.

//edit whoops, sorry apeZ, I read something completely different there.

Energize · 9 Feb 2011 at 23:57

apeZ said:
Try without quotation marks?

Doesn't work either.

Hades · 10 Feb 2011 at 00:19

Just use google and add overclockers in the search. It usually finds it.

BigglesPiP · 10 Feb 2011 at 00:23

Because the forum software maintains an index of posts that contain words or combinations of letters. Combinations too short match too many posts and combinations too large or using unusual characters mean there's too many combinations. Both of these make the index too big which means it's harder to store and harder to parse.

Indexing is expensive and most forums are not as wealthy as google.

You can however use google to search the forum, use a string like:

Code:

site:forums.overclockers.co.uk some "search terms"

it will even have cached treads which the forum has deleted and that didn't get into the archive. Which is another cost saving measure here.

Energize · 10 Feb 2011 at 20:21

Other forums allow those search terms though and almost instantly find the results.

Redgie · 10 Feb 2011 at 20:28

My forum allows this and it's SMF

ChrisD. · 10 Feb 2011 at 20:32

Energize said:
Other forums allow those search terms though and almost instantly find the results.

As large as OcUK?

Redgie · 10 Feb 2011 at 20:41

MilanoChris said:
As large as OcUK?

Sophisticated database software can handle a lot. I don't think every member of the forum is currently searching for the letter A simultaneously, I think it can handle it.

Energize · 10 Feb 2011 at 20:46

MilanoChris said:
As large as OcUK?

Much larger. Ocuk only has 13,000 active members after all.

Dave M · 10 Feb 2011 at 21:51

MySQL is **** poor at full text searches, which is why ocuk switched to sphinx ages ago, bit of an old version now but still chugs along.

I'll look at getting the indexer limit dropped to 2 characters, not like sphinx really uses any resources anyway.

Redgie · 10 Feb 2011 at 22:05

MySQL works fine for full text searches for me, though admittedly I've never used Sphinx so can't compare the two.

Viper² · 10 Feb 2011 at 22:20

What's the point in limiting characters for a search anyway?

HangTime · 10 Feb 2011 at 22:28

I think the real problem is that it doesn't do proper string searches.

e.g. search for "it supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"

This returns:

Crappy forum search said:
The search term you specified ("it*supercalifragilisticexpialidocious") is under the minimum word length (2) and therefore will not be found. Please make this term longer.
If this term contains a wildcard, please make this term more specific.

This is just plain wrong, it has inserted a wildcard where I didn't request one, I wanted to search for a string which is well over 35 chars and yet it is claiming that it is less than 2 characters.

Point taken about the indexer and having to have a break point for what it going to be indexed (space) but it is still really annoying.